


Subsets

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Series: Comfort Levels 'Verse [4]
Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:45:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connie asked for Raj/Leonard for her birthday. I am incapable of fulfilling such a simple prompt without it getting all complicated and stuff. In short, Raj and Leonard sleep together again, and get busted in flagrante delicto by Penny, who distracts Sheldon from realising just what's going on under the covers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subsets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [concupiscence66](https://archiveofourown.org/users/concupiscence66/gifts).



> The Big Bang Theory characters belong to Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre and I am not making any money, candy, or sleep off this work of fan fiction.

Turning to each other has become habit when they’re alone. Neither of them are exactly what you can really call _lonely_ per se; it’s just that every once in a while Leonard opens his apartment door to see Raj unaccompanied by Howard, and Raj looks past him to a Sheldon-free couch, and these factors make it officially their night to watch the shows Sheldon disdains and eat food Howard’s allergic to and, well, enjoy what their friendship is when it’s just the two of them without any intervening factors.

This time Leonard opens the door and Raj must’ve known something was up because his mouth finds Leonard’s before the door even closes behind them, warm and sure and comforting. One hand ruffles Leonard’s hair; the other’s holding a plastic bag that clinks invitingly.

“How did you know?” Leonard asks, trying not to sound morose.

“Because Sheldon and Penny are double-dating with Howard and Bernadette and Howard can’t keep his stupid mouth shut.” Raj sits down in Sheldon’s spot and starts pulling beer bottles out of the bag and setting them on the table. “I know you didn’t want to talk about what happened after I went home that night, dude, but all I’ve heard from Howard is how he can’t believe Sheldon and Penny hooked up and it’s starting to get a little annoying.”

“Only a little?” Leonard can’t resist asking as he relocates some of the beer to the fridge.

“Like the sea is a little wet.”

“Right.” Leonard sits down in what’s unofficially Penny’s spot and pushes one of the Thai food cartons towards Raj. “Chicken pad thai okay?”

“You know it is.” Raj gives him a thank you smile and starts eating. Leonard wonders if Howard ever remembers what Raj’s favorite foods are. It’s not like he set out intentionally to memories Raj-related information; it’s just that with a mind full of physics facts and TV trivia he’s used to automatically storing all the small things away.

He opens his beer and takes a few bites of his own food before he says, “Promise me you won’t freak out when I tell you?” and picks up a napkin.

Raj nods, sipping his beer.

“Okay. For the last two and a half months, Sheldon and Penny and I have been kind of, I don’t know, dating.” Leonard gets the hand with the napkin in it in front of Raj’s face in time to catch the splutter of beer.

“Thanks.” Raj takes the napkin and swipes his mouth before getting right to the point. “ _Dating_? The _three_ of you? How does that even _work_?”

“Yeah, we’re still trying to figure that out ourselves. I mean, Sheldon on his own drives me nuts, and Penny on her own... I love her, but, well, Sheldon and I--”

“And the dot dot dotting, and your history, yeah, I get it.”

“Yeah. So sometimes two of us hang out, and sometimes all three of us do, and I guess I just drew the short straw tonight.”

“My straw’s not that short.” Raj lifts an eyebrow at him.

Leonard can’t help a snort of laughter at that. “You dork.”

“But I’m your dork. On a part-time basis.”

Leonard shakes his head, not in negation, simply in a _God, what is my life_ way. “If my love life gets any more complicated I’ll need Sheldon to draw up a schedule.”

“You can’t _schedule_ spicy Indian manlove, dude, it just happens.” Raj puts one hand on his thigh and Leonard feels himself getting hard straight away, not that he wasn’t already halfway there.

“Can it at least wait until after dinner? I’m hungry.” He lifts Raj’s hand and kisses each finger.

“It would be a sin to let pad thai this good go cold,” Raj says solemnly, taking his hand back. Leonard leans against him and they both try to pretend they’re not hurrying through their meal.

* * *

“Aren’t you supposed to wait half an hour after eating before doing this sort of thing?” Raj asks between kisses.

“That’s for swimming,” Leonard says. “So you don’t cramp up in the water and drown.”

“Oh. I don’t think either of us is at risk of drowning.”

“No. Besides, it’s been twenty minutes. I think we’re good.”

“You’re _timing_ this?”

“No, I looked at the clock to make sure we’re not gonna get busted.”

“Are we?”

“Not unless they come home an hour early.”

“Good. I think Sheldon would freak out if he saw what we’re doing in his spot.”

* * *

Another fifteen minutes, one sweater vest, one hideous coat, and one beer each later, Leonard’s standing at Sheldon’s whiteboard, which he’s wiped blank with a grand gesture. He’s got the black marker in one hand and is trying to bat Raj’s hands away with the other.

“Get off, this is for science.”

“Screw science.”

“You don’t screw science, science screws you,” Leonard retorts, not particularly originally. He’s got initials written all over the board: LH, RK, AFF, and so on. He adds LW midway between LH and HW, caps the marker, and picks up the red one.

“That is so lame.”

Leonard’s response is an ever so mature raspberry. He starts drawing circles around the initials, some encompassing two sets, some three. He has to admit that the degree to which they overlap is a little unsettling, as is the number of partners he’s shared with Howard now that he’s actually looking at the diagram.

“It looks like a flower. An inbred one.” Raj gets past Leonard’s guard and unbuttons his pants. “Sheldon’s going to kill you when he sees it.”

“Don’t care,” Leonard says with beer-fuelled bravery. “If he hadn’t insisted that to make our relationship stronger he had to get time alone with Penny, I wouldn’t be drawing on his stupid board.”

Raj’s hand stills on his hip. “He _said_ that?”

“There were a lot of longer words, but essentially, yeah.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll--”

“Don’t say it. Just... don’t.” Leonard drops the marker and can’t be bothered with finding it and the cap; too much effort. He just turns and pulls Raj’s shirt open instead, buttons skittering all over the floor.

“I know what being a third wheel feels like,” Raj persists, and Leonard just growls and grabs Raj’s hair and yanks him into a kiss. Raj gasps in pain and Leonard manages one “sorry” against his lips before he can’t talk with words any more.

If they’re both third wheels, maybe it’s time to build their own damn bicycle. He loves Penny. He loves Sheldon. He doesn’t love Raj in the same way but maybe he can learn to. He tries not to think about Howard and Bernadette, Sheldon and Penny, eating pasta, drinking wine, maybe laughing, maybe just listening to Sheldon opine about whatever flaws the restaurant has, not knowing about this.

The kiss finally breaks and Leonard bends down, scoops up the marker, and defiantly emphasizes the circle that’s around the initials LH and RK.

“Bedroom,” he states rather than asks, and Raj has the good sense to pick up their scattered clothes (the buttons are forever AWOL) before following him down the hallway. Not that Sheldon’s desecrated whiteboard isn’t in its own way more than enough evidence.

* * *

Raj keeps sort of goading him once they get into the bedroom, making comments about the other four out at dinner. The door’s shut and the star-patterned tie is in place and he wonders how Sheldon and Penny are going to react when they get home and see it.

“Would you stop saying stuff about them? Please?”

Raj gets a dangerous look in his eyes. “Why? Is it making you _jealous_?”

“Yeah, I’m jealous because you’re talking about your short, skinny boyfriend who’s missing out on an evening of _this_.” Leonard runs his hand down Raj’s smoothly muscled torso.

“That was totally not what I meant. Plus you’re only like a quarter of an inch taller than him, dude.”

“Every little bit counts,” Leonard says, not having to go up on his tiptoes to kiss Raj.

(Okay, so he’s kinda balancing on the balls of his feet, but it’s totally not the same thing.)

“Mmmm. Ow. Your glasses are poking me.” Raj reaches up and pulls them off, setting them on the nightstand.

“I don’t complain about _you_ poking _me_.”

“What... oh.” Raj grinds against Leonard’s thigh again. “You mean _that_?”

“Uh-huh.” Leonard hooks his thumbs under the waistband of Raj’s boxers and yanks them down, dropping to his knees to get Raj’s underwear right off and then exhale hotly over him. Raj lets out a little squeak and Leonard grins before taking him in and hearing Raj begin the familiar litany of star names. It’s like their own private joke by now; even if one of them mentions Proxima Centauri in a totally different context they’ll both laugh.

Everything else might be complicated, and this might not help matters in the long run, but when Raj pulls him back to his feet and kisses him until they’re suddenly sprawled across the bed instead of standing up, Leonard forgets about that.

His head is spinning a little from the beer and from arousal. Mostly from arousal. He knows he’s quite lucid and aware when Raj pushes him down onto his back and starts kissing a lazy line down his chest. By the time Raj reaches his groin Leonard’s already bucking his hips in anxious little arcs, and when Raj’s mouth slips down over him, engulfing him in the warmth of his mouth and the movements of his quick, sure tongue, he’s a hundred and ten percent in the moment.

Even if that’s numerically impossible. Whatever.

Raj’s mouth moves away all too soon and Leonard lets out a disappointed little whine, opening his eyes (when did he close them? He can’t remember, just sometime during the jumble of kissing and kissing and _kissing_ ) to see Raj reaching out for the drawer in the nightstand, digging for condoms and lube.

They haven’t done this before. It’s always been the other way around. He sort of feels wrong about it, as though being taken by anyone other than Sheldon is a betrayal of their relationship. But then Raj is working a finger into him and Leonard’s no longer sure where the line can reasonably be drawn. He looks sidelong at Raj, who has a look on his face that’s simultaneously complete absorption and faraway contemplation and wonders if he’s the person Raj is thinking about.

Thinking about it overcomplicates things too much. Leonard gives up on thinking, lets Raj work him open, patient fingers making him squirm and shudder. Raj’s fingers are thicker than Sheldon’s. _Raj_ is thicker than Sheldon. Thinking too much again. Thinking like this leads to calling out the wrong name. Penny proved that with Stuart.

Oh God, _Penny_.

(Oh God, _Stuart_. He wants the peanut gallery out of his head before he starts thinking about Captain Sweatpants.)

Raj’s fingers stop, withdraw, and Raj settles his other hand on Leonard’s shoulder, shaking him lightly. “You still with me, dude?”

“What? Yeah, I am. Of course.”

Raj nods like maybe he doesn’t quite believe Leonard and starts rolling the condom on. Leonard makes a move to roll over onto his back.

“No, stay like that. I have an idea.”

Oh good, Raj has an idea. That’s got to be better than having a chorus of chaos in his head telling him he’s doing a Bad Thing.

* * *

Raj’s idea ends up being that he pushes smoothly into Leonard while Leonard’s still face down on the bed,

(and he’s definitely bigger than Sheldon and for a second Leonard feels like this is too much, he can’t take it all, too much, but then Raj presses right in and Leonard just feels a little uncomfortable and then full, full of heat, replete with it, soft warmth, not sharp fire, and he lets out the breath he hadn’t realized that he was holding)

and then rolls the two of them so they’re spooning. It’s not the most ideal position, maybe, but the feeling of Raj’s chest pressed up against his back and the way his backside fits in so nicely against the cradle of Raj’s hips makes up for that.

Raj scatters kisses over the nape of Leonard’s neck, making him shiver. Then his hand slides down to Leonard’s cock, making him moan. He enjoys the way that Raj draws these reactions out of him; they seem inevitable, like the pull of gravity.

He feels Raj move his free hand under his neck and reaches up to intertwine his fingers with Raj’s; he doesn’t quite know what to do with his other hand but eventually slides it back to settle it on Raj’s hip, encouraging him to move faster. Raj acquiesces to his silent request with a soft laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re so needy sometimes.”

“You were the one begging to be... to be fucked the first time.” Leonard finds it hard to say the word, even more so considering the context.

Raj lightly bites his shoulder, which makes Leonard shiver again. “That was then. This is now.” His fingers tighten around Leonard’s cock and he buries himself to the hilt inside Leonard, and Leonard’s throat tightens as he lets out a deep moan.

“Raj...”

“Mmmm?”

“Just don’t stop.”

“You mean you don’t want to take a break to look at some stars?” Raj gives him a teasing squeeze.

“God!”

“Didn’t think so.” Raj tires of teasing him then and settles into a slow, steady pace that gets the tension building in Leonard’s whole body. Raj’s hand on his cock doesn’t quite match the pace set by the rest of him, so Leonard feels like for every two steps he takes towards coming he’s taking one back, but at least he’s headed in the right direction. It’s not entirely a bad thing, either; he’s spinning out with the pleasure of feeling Raj move in him and he wants to tell Raj that he’s already seeing stars, but all that comes out when he opens his mouth is another moan.

The thought occurs that he’s probably a double disappointment to the Koothrappali family now, first from sleeping with Priya and now from corrupting Raj so thoroughly. Although considering the way Raj is touching him, thumb doing this little twist up over the head of his cock every few strokes, he’s pretty sure he’s not the one responsible for corrupting Raj.

Leonard wishes his brain would just shut up; wonders if Sheldon’s brain races like this during sex or if he focuses as completely on sex as he does anything else that he’s doing, whether it’s physics, making Penny Blossoms, or making Cylon toast.

Sheldon.

“ _Leonard!_ ”

Speak of the devil. He didn’t even hear the front door open. Raj’s hands both go tight and it’s a little _too_ tight on his cock and Leonard lets out a squeak of pain.

“Sorry,” Raj whispers, and he lets go altogether but he’s still sheathed inside Leonard and as hard as ever despite the bellow from the living room. He reaches down and whisks the blanket up over the two of them, right to their necks. “Close your eyes.”

“What...”

“ _Close them!_ ” Raj whispers, and Leonard closes his eyes just as Sheldon’s footsteps stop outside his door.

“Sheldon, leave him alone.” Penny sounds resigned.

“I will not! He _defaced_ my board!”

“Honey, come on, it’s kinda cute.”

Sheldon starts knocking. Leonard can _see_ the two of them through his closed eyelids and the door: Sheldon, tight-lipped, rapping on the door; Penny, pulling at his arm, looking up at him anxious-eyed.

“He’s asleep, Sheldon.”

“I refuse to believe that.” Sheldon disdains all social contracts by opening the door despite Leonard’s lack of response to his knock.

Forget closing his eyes and feigning sleep. Leonard’s not even sure he can feign _breathing_ at the moment.

“My bad,” Penny says.

Oh, _no_.

“ _They’re_ asleep.”

Leonard cracks one eyelid open a nanometer and sees Sheldon’s form silhouetted in the doorway by the weak light coming from the living room. Penny’s smaller outline is beside him, leaning into him.

“They probably just got drunk and passed out,” she says.

“Nonsense. That Venn diagram was far too detailed for Leonard to manage drunk.”

Leonard almost protests, feels Raj’s hand tighten almost imperceptibly on his, and realizes that’s exactly what Sheldon wants him to do. He focuses on making his breathing slow and shallow instead. In. Out. In. Out. In. Raj is still in him, hand draped over his hip under the blanket. The situation hasn’t diminished his desire in the slightest.

“ _Sheldon_. If you’re going to be mean to Leonard, save it for when he’s awake and able to defend himself.” Penny’s tone drops a little lower. “Meanwhile, why don’t you and I go to bed ourselves?”

“I suppose I _am_ tired. But Penny, I’m still--”

Whatever else Sheldon still is (annoyed, angry, frustrated, in need of a whiteboard eraser), it’s cut off as Penny leans harder against him, going up on tiptoe to kiss him. Their shadows meld together; Sheldon’s arms slip around Penny’s waist, hers around his neck. They’re making out in Leonard’s doorway while he’s allegedly passed out with Raj, and Leonard cannot for the life of him come up with a hypothesis that explains why he finds the scene so alluring. Maybe it’s the occasional flash of blonde hair as Penny moves her head, or the way her body fits against Sheldon’s, or the soft noises they both make as they kiss.

He hears Raj’s quiet quick intake of breath and realizes Raj is peeking as well; the part where Raj’s hand wraps back around his cock and starts a tiny slow stroke only reinforces it.

Great. Now the guy he’s sleeping with behind his boyfriend and girlfriend’s backs is getting off on watching his boyfriend and girlfriend make out. He’s going to have to stop Googling for relationship advice and go straight to Fetlife.

Sheldon breaks the kiss to ask, “Should we really be doing this here?”

“They’re _asleep_ ,” Penny says. Leonard sees one of her hands come down and start plucking at Sheldon’s shirt buttons. How she got him into the shirt instead of his usual attire he doesn’t quite know, but it’s pretty obvious how she intends to get him back out of it.

“But...”

“Ssssh.”

Right before she kisses him again she turns her head briefly and Leonard is suddenly positive that she knows she has an audience. What is this, some sort of punishment for sneaking around with Raj, that now he has to watch Penny and Sheldon together? Does she know only that they are not asleep or has some sort of intuition told her that there’s more to it than that.

Sheldon lets out a muffled moan. Oh God. Her hand’s moved from shirt buttons to pants button. Leonard feels Raj sort of twitch inside him; his muscles tighten in response and Raj lets out a whimper that’s mercifully masked by the noise Sheldon makes as Penny’s hand slips into his underwear.

“Penny...”

 _Penny_. _Raj_. _Sheldon_.

Leonard doesn’t know how long he can last, not with Raj’s hand making those minuscule movements that are nevertheless pushing him relentlessly towards coming, not with watching Penny go gracefully to her knees and take Sheldon in her mouth.

Sheldon’s hips arch right up off the door frame and Raj’s hand goes tighter and his hips mimic the movement and oh God did they notice that? No. No, Penny’s attention is focused elsewhere and Leonard’s got the feeling that at this point Sheldon doesn’t even know where _he_ is, let alone where Leonard and Raj are.

Penny’s hands settle on Sheldon’s hips, pinning him back against the door frame. Sheldon’s hands comb through her hair, encouraging, pleading, but not pressing. His head is thrown back as much as he can manage and his knees are half-bent in an effort to not just fold up and fall on the floor and Raj’s hand is moving in time with Penny’s mouth and it’s much too much: Leonard spills himself over Raj’s hand at the same moment as Sheldon cries out and his body spasms.

Penny straightens up while Sheldon’s still shaking. Leonard can picture the self-satisfied smile on her face; he’s seen it before. She likes teasing that reaction out of both of them.

“Come on,” she says, as though Sheldon’s not standing there staring at her like his mind just went on a little vacation to Switzerland or Bozeman or Proxima Centauri or somewhere. “Shower and bed time.”

She glances over at the bed again before pulling Sheldon showerward. Leonard can’t see her face in the dim light but he would swear she’s still smiling nonetheless. Sheldon stumbles once and then follows her, pulling the door closed behind them at last.

* * *

Leonard waits until the shower starts running before sighing. “God, I thought we were in big trouble there.”

“Dude, you still _are_.”

“...what?”

Raj rolls them both back over until Leonard’s on his stomach again, then drags him up to his knees, and Leonard’s struggling to keep up considering his brain is jelly and finally manages to grab the headboard with one hand to give himself some semblance of stability as Raj clings to his hips and drives into him.

Oh. _That_ sort of trouble. Well, he can live with that.


End file.
